California Fish Tracking Consortium

Welcome to the

California Fish Tracking Consortium

An array of more than 400 monitors spanning a geographic area of more than 500km has been established throughout the Central Valley of California in order to track the movements of various species of fish. The array is able to detect movements of fish in regions such as the Sacramento River, Delta, and San Francisco Bay Estuary. The spacing between monitors is based on the range of detection of miniature ultrasonic transmitters. Researchers from multiple agencies will be able to track members of many species using this array, which will be maintained by scientists at UC Davis and the National Marine Fisheries Service. Currently UC Davis, NOAA/UC Santa Cruz, US Army Corps of Engineers, US Fish and Wildlife Service, US Bureau of Reclamation, California Department of Fish and Game, East Bay Municipal Utilities District, Bay Planning Coalition, and Hanson Environmental utilize the array. We have had further inquiries from additional groups representing academic, governmental and private interests about participating in our project. We hope to expand our existing array of monitors to include more sites and groups. This new tracking infrastructure in the Sacramento-San Joaquin watershed will increase our knowledge of migratory behavior, including the rates of movement and survival, and will help assess the impact of natural and anthropogenic changes to the watershed.